AGRA. 
199 
CHAPTER XV. 
AGRA. CAPARISONED ELEPHANT. CAMEL. 
We spent some time at Agra, as there is much to 
be seen in the city and neighbourhood well worthy of 
observation. The fort, which was one of the noble 
works of the Emperor Akbar, is large, and contains 
many beautiful edifices, memorials at once of his 
taste and magnificence. It is built of stone, ex- 
tremely hard and of the colour of jasper. In the fort, 
when it surrendered to Lord Lake in 1803, there was 
a cannon of prodigious dimensions, its length being 
fourteen feet, its diameter four, and the calibre two. 
It carried a cast iron ball of fifteen hundred pounds 
weight. Lord Lake endeavoured to convey it down 
the Ganges to Calcutta upon a raft, but it broke 
through the frame, and sank into the sands of the 
river. The city stands on the south-west side of 
the Jumna. The houses are lofty, and some of 
the streets so narrow as not to afford space for 
more than two passengers to walk abreast. An ele- 
phant could not pass through many of them. Much 
the greater part of this once regal city is in so 
ruinous a state as to be almost uninhabited. The 
country about Agra is flat, but studded with the 
grandest remains of antiquity ; and it is frequently a 
